Google rallies opposition to UN takeover of Internet governance

Critics say shifting Internet governance to the ITU would make it less open.

The world's leading search company has decided to come out swinging against an effort by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the telecommunications arm of the United Nations, to seize a larger role for itself in Internet governance.

"There is a growing backlash on Internet freedom," Google says on its website. "Forty-two countries filter and censor content. In just the last two years, governments have enacted 19 new laws threatening online free expression."

Google worries that these censorious governments could use the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications, which starts December 3, as an opportunity to grab more authority over the Internet. "The ITU is the wrong place to make decisions about the future of the Internet," Google argues.

Founded in 1865 to manage interconnections among the world's telegraph lines and later its telephone network, the ITU had a large role in world telecommunications policy for many decades. But the ITU was a creature of state telecommunications monopolies, and the Internet was designed to route around the control of those incumbents. So as the Internet has grown, the ITU's influence has waned. Instead, Internet governance has been performed by more open organizations such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

The agenda for next month's meeting is shrouded in secrecy, but ITU officials have denied that they're planning a power grab. Still, the website WCITLeaks, created by two researchers at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, provides copies of leaked draft documents, some of which suggest that the ITU, with the backing of repressive governments such as Russia, is hoping to reverse its declining authority by seizing some of the powers currently held by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Google and other critics object to that approach because ITU is a strictly inter-governmental body, with no representation for private companies like Google, non-profits, or ordinary citizens.

Google isn't alone in opposing a growing ITU role in Internet governance. Two activist groups that played a key role in the debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act, Fight for the Future and Access Now, have launched a website of their own warning that "the ITU could put the Internet behind closed doors."

"If some proposals at WCIT are approved, decisions about the Internet would be made by a top-down, old-school government-centric agency behind closed doors," the groups warn. "Some proposals allow for access to be cut off more easily, threaten privacy, legitimize monitoring and blocking online traffic. Others seek to impose new fees for accessing content, not to mention slowing down connection speeds."

Good google is doing that for the people in the world. Wish there are more companies like google. Also, why can't government (yes, that includes the US government) leave their citizens alone? give a rest!

This would have the risk of going the route of the UN's human rights commission, which is dominated by some of the world's worst human rights abusers who are very specifically on that committee so they *can* control and prevent what would normally be logical recommendations against them from that committee.

So I would fully expect the countries with the greatest interest in censorship to flock to that committee and voila: a "legitimate" UN group to do their censorship bidding and they have full plausible deniability.

This is a solution in search of a problem being driven by those who have hidden agendas.

As bad as we (the U.S.) can be at seizing domains for alleged copyright infringement, turning governance over to a UN body would be disastrous to the internet as we know it today. Imagine if a country's blasphemy laws were enacted to the internet as a whole, or if voices considered contrary to the state's 'harmony' were prevented from being heard.

As bad as we (the U.S.) can be at seizing domains for alleged copyright infringement, turning governance over to a UN body would be disastrous to the internet as we know it today. Imagine if a country's blasphemy laws were enacted to the internet as a whole, or if voices considered contrary to the state's 'harmony' were prevented from being heard.

We don't have to imagine it. We live in that world today.

Or perhaps you haven't been paying attention? Do anything the US doesn't like and you're kicked out. I don't see what is any worse about allowing other countries with different opinions to do the same. Perhaps they'll curb some of the shit the US is doing now.

So you want to leave control of the Internet namespace in the hands of a California company ? Not surprising they're flogging off top level domains at a few hundred thousand dollars a pop. Who cares about the costs of brand protection and how easy it's becoming for some fraudster domain to impersonate your bank when there are profits to be made. Would the ITU ever have done such a thing over confusion marketing of international telephone dialling codes ? No.

[pessimistic rant]Most public interest groups seem more interested in their own power and influence than the goals and ideas they are supposedly organized around in the first place. Governments are even worse. Politicians are supposed to be civil servants, why are they more like movie stars with all the money, self interest and scandal that implies. Is it simply the type of people attracted to these positions or does the system make it impossible to be any better?[/pessimistic rant]On a more serious note I don't see how they can justify getting any control over the Internet. Maybe back when dial up was the way online, but now there are too many access venues with too many different technologies involved. Maybe that is the best way to keep the Internet free, continue making it more and more complicated, such that no one group can have it under their balliwack.

I tend to avoid conspiracy theories, but unfortunately, i do not like the idea of "one world government" under the UN, that would be a disaster. What problems would giving control of the internet, to the UN solve?

Last time i checked, my internet is working fine...

In any case, consolidating power for bureaucrats and politicians, is counterproductive to being a dutiful citizen.

If the UN expelled members who violated the UN Charter and rigorously observed human rights, it would be one thing. However, the UN does not. It is no more capable of protecting human rights than it is capable of restoring rights and overthrowing tyrants, something a free internet can do without help from the UN. Thank you very much.

Considering that the U.N. is one of the least capable, most divided, most ineffective, most misguided, and most dysfunctional creations in the history of the human race... I think I'm in favor of it, just to watch how the internet completely and utterly bypasses their supposed authority. There will be some real genius at work if the U.N. ever takes over, and not a bit of it will come from the U.N. The internet will truly become international, without borders, without restrictions, and not ruled by any special interests.

As Gilmore said, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." The Net will interpret this as damage on massive scale. We'll get Internet Gen 2, and it will be very, very interesting. I'm rather looking forward to it.

As bad as we (the U.S.) can be at seizing domains for alleged copyright infringement, turning governance over to a UN body would be disastrous to the internet as we know it today. Imagine if a country's blasphemy laws were enacted to the internet as a whole, or if voices considered contrary to the state's 'harmony' were prevented from being heard.

We don't have to imagine it. We live in that world today.

Or perhaps you haven't been paying attention? Do anything the US doesn't like and you're kicked out. I don't see what is any worse about allowing other countries with different opinions to do the same. Perhaps they'll curb some of the shit the US is doing now.

Really, like what? What shit is the US doing? Please don't tell me you are referring to the MegaUpload take down.

Considering that the U.N. is one of the least capable, most divided, most ineffective, most misguided, and most dysfunctional creations in the history of the human race... I think I'm in favor of it, just to watch how the internet completely and utterly bypasses their supposed authority. There will be some real genius at work if the U.N. ever takes over, and not a bit of it will come from the U.N. The internet will truly become international, without borders, without restrictions, and not ruled by any special interests.

As Gilmore said, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." The Net will interpret this as damage on massive scale. We'll get Internet Gen 2, and it will be very, very interesting. I'm rather looking forward to it.

Why risk all that, when we could outrage against it and stop it dead in its tracks?

Or perhaps you haven't been paying attention? Do anything the US doesn't like and you're kicked out. I don't see what is any worse about allowing other countries with different opinions to do the same. Perhaps they'll curb some of the shit the US is doing now.

Granted, I got on someone's list just looking up variations on that theme. But, they are not inaccessible, and Google serves them right up. And, in the eternal silliness of the powers that be, they've created such an enormous list that separating the wheat from the chaff is a sysiphean task.

While I acknowledge your point that the U.S. (along with many multinational corporations) has attempted to restrict the internet, how much success have they actually had? The backlash to those attempts within the U.S. has been substantial. The methods to slide around them, numerous. There are more encryption and misdirection systems on the internet than I can count even now. How much would they expand? I almost hope he U.N. _really_ decides to try to clamp down, so that even the grannies are forced to go around the system, by easily installed software distributed on cheap CDs left essentially everywhere. That would be interesting, indeed.

Letting the UN have any power over the net would be a mistake. The US is, for all of its faults, very fond of freedom of speech, and indeed is the single strongest player IN THE WORLD on behalf of freedom of speech.

I am glad that Google is fighting the good fight. It is nice when corporate interests coincide so nicely with public interests.

I would hope the US doesn't give up any more than it already has. ICANN is bad enough.

The US has a long history of giving the finger to initiatives that aim to take its postwar spoils. That has its ups and downs.

You sure got a stick up your ass about America. Why don't you channel all of that negative energy to more productive use of your own life?

(Note: I don't disagree that America has engaged in a lot of bad behavior all over the world, but to single her out is essentially putting on the ignorance cap and the blinders on to all of the evils every single part of the world has already been a participant of)

Good on Google to raise awareness. It's using power to benefit all of humanity, even if it also means helping yourself in the process.

The historical nature of ALL governments (to maintain/seize power over The Governed) remains as it always has.

Everyone should always remember these types of events whenever considering giving increased powers to any government; especially when expanding the scope of a Government beyond that of its "charter" (ie: The Constitution in the case of the US).

Why risk all that, when we could outrage against it and stop it dead in its tracks?

Outrage has been mildly successful, thus far, but note the failing of outrage against the Communications Decency Act in the U.S. Pretty much every knowledgeable person argued against it, but it passed. People in favor of communication freedom are being outspent (which is what it really boils down to) by the media companies six ways to Sunday. I would love it if our yelling stopped these idiot laws from being enacted, but I think it is really unlikely.

I suspect the only way people will truly understand how free communication is necessary will require people to be restricted in their daily lives. I'm not saying its a good waypoint, not by a long shot, just the only one I see as probable. Most people don't think about these things until they impact them.

Do anything the US doesn't like and you're kicked out. I don't see what is any worse about allowing other countries with different opinions to do the same. Perhaps they'll curb some of the shit the US is doing now.

Ah yes, do some shit to me (which I'll be really vague about) and I'll do the same unto you. That worked out really well in the playground and it plays well geopolitically too.

As bad as we (the U.S.) can be at seizing domains for alleged copyright infringement, turning governance over to a UN body would be disastrous to the internet as we know it today. Imagine if a country's blasphemy laws were enacted to the internet as a whole, or if voices considered contrary to the state's 'harmony' were prevented from being heard.

This indicates a significant level of ignorance of what the UN is, what it does and how it works, not untypical of ill-informed US opinion about the UN in recent decades. If the ITU are as bad as this would suggest, please let us know specifically which aspect/s of the international telephony system it has mismanaged and how this has been mismanaged ? In practice the reason the international phone system works so well is because the ITU have done the minimum needed and no more, concerning documentation of standards agreed by consensus and in managing the international dialling code namespace. The ITU wouldn't be able to do any of the stupid FUD described because its bureacratic processes would take years to discover there was no consensus.

The management structure, ownership and operations of ICANN are highly contentious, and the fact is that a US government could tell ICANN to do whatever stupidity it wanted and unilaterally at that because ICANN is under Californian law. This, and the pollution of TLD domain space for ICANN executive profit, gives little confidence in continued US Internet leadership anywhere outside the US where the technical and management issues are understood.

They could also build a new network (UNet?), which offers enough similarities to the internet that big companies could port their stuff to the UNet and just block the internet. But there's no way they can control telecommunications over the internet efficiently.

The points about the UN's inability to control the human rights abuses of its own members (especially in light of the depressingly hilarious joke that is the Human Rights Council) are what worry me the most. Global governance is a nice idea in theory, but the UN as it is we have is not fit to take on that role, and until it is, we shouldn"t be giving it any more power over key social and economic domains like the Internet. Otherwise we'll get psychos legislating religious blasphemy on the Internet, jail time for unauthorized streaming, and all sorts of other lovely things.

Especially if the meetings are closed-door. I mean, is there any reason not to be suspicious when they hide the proceedings from the public?

So you want to leave control of the Internet namespace in the hands of a California company ? Not surprising they're flogging off top level domains at a few hundred thousand dollars a pop. Who cares about the costs of brand protection and how easy it's becoming for some fraudster domain to impersonate your bank when there are profits to be made. Would the ITU ever have done such a thing over confusion marketing of international telephone dialling codes ? No.

You think corporations are more greedy than governments? I think you'd better take a closer look at where the money you earn ends up. I suspect the UN would be trying to tax us on traffic or on a percentage of revenues a sight generates. The UN has been looking for a long time for a way to tax people. Give them control of essential parts of the Internet and you would give them the leverage over our economies to force it on us.

A California company is subject to our laws and can, if enough pressure is applied, be held accountable. How often are UN representatives held accountable for misdeeds? They have diplomatic immunity. We should never, ever, ever consider giving the UN power over anything as essential to us as the Internet.

So you want to leave control of the Internet namespace in the hands of a California company ? Not surprising they're flogging off top level domains at a few hundred thousand dollars a pop. Who cares about the costs of brand protection and how easy it's becoming for some fraudster domain to impersonate your bank when there are profits to be made. Would the ITU ever have done such a thing over confusion marketing of international telephone dialling codes ? No.

You think corporations are more greedy than governments? I think you'd better take a closer look at where the money you earn ends up. I suspect the UN would be trying to tax us on traffic or on a percentage of revenues a sight generates. The UN has been looking for a long time for a way to tax people. Give them control of essential parts of the Internet and you would give them the leverage over our economies to force it on us.

A California company is subject to our laws and can, if enough pressure is applied, be held accountable. How often are UN representatives held accountable for misdeeds? They have diplomatic immunity. We should never, ever, ever consider giving the UN power over anything as essential to us as the Internet.

Ill-informed FUD. Neither ICANN, nor the US government, nor the ITU are capable of taxing use of an open protocol, any more than any similar entity is capable of taxing use of the English language. This kind of comment really is typical of misunderstandings both of what ICANN does and how the Internet works. If any of the above comment were true, please specify how the ITU misuses it's powers with respect to the phone system.

I know some here won't like that, but I hope the US eventually does give up its governance of the internet. I can understand that US citizens would want the US to retain as much control as it can, but reality is, the internet is a global network now.

That being said, I sincerely hope it won't be the ITU that gets the responsibility of governing the internet. As the article and some comments noted, the ITU has a history of being a closed-doors members-only club, and no, we as the general public aren't invited. For instance, look at the standards for cellular networks, telephone networks, and anything associated. You'll have a hard time getting your hands on any of those, they tend to be confidential, or at least copyrighted and only available for a hefty fee. Now compare that to the internet's RFCs...

So, who should take over governance of the internet? What we need here is something that is a little bit like the UN, but based on democracy. Direct democracy. Why not have the internet users as a whole elect their government? Give it a constitution that mandates openness, fairness and no censorship, and have the users (read: the citizens of the internet) vote on their own representatives.

Governments won't like that of course, but governments need to be reminded of their place, namely that they are but a representative body of their peoples, not the bosses of their respective peoples.

Until all this can happen though, leaving things as they are right now is a good compromise. The internet is working just fine, after all.

So you want to leave control of the Internet namespace in the hands of a California company ? Not surprising they're flogging off top level domains at a few hundred thousand dollars a pop. Who cares about the costs of brand protection and how easy it's becoming for some fraudster domain to impersonate your bank when there are profits to be made. Would the ITU ever have done such a thing over confusion marketing of international telephone dialling codes ? No.

You think corporations are more greedy than governments? I think you'd better take a closer look at where the money you earn ends up. I suspect the UN would be trying to tax us on traffic or on a percentage of revenues a sight generates. The UN has been looking for a long time for a way to tax people. Give them control of essential parts of the Internet and you would give them the leverage over our economies to force it on us.

Do you have any evidence for your claim the UN is looking for ways to tax people, other than hearsay? If so, I'd like to see that please.

copsewood wrote:

A California company is subject to our laws and can, if enough pressure is applied, be held accountable. How often are UN representatives held accountable for misdeeds? They have diplomatic immunity. We should never, ever, ever consider giving the UN power over anything as essential to us as the Internet.

And how often do califonia companies get held accountable by ordinary citizens who can't pay a high-profile lawyer a few hundred thousand bucks? Obviously, neither way is really ideal. But you do have to admit that the UN isn't all bad. There's quite a few wars that would have happened without the UN, and there's quite a few diseases that wouldn't have been eradicated without the UN. Small pox for example. Or do you distrust UN doctors too because they have diplomatic immunity?

The UN has spent more time on sizing up a means to fulfill their 2008 mandate for wealth transfer from 1st to 3rd than anything else these past 4 years. That they would see the naming registry as tool to accomplish such should be obvious to the blind. I expect under their control costs would soar.

People really need to read the African trades to witness the UN in action when speaking of wealth transfer and inaction regarding human right's issues as the case is today.

Timothy B. Lee / Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times.